Unfortunately, the July 1937 microfilm reel of the Express is missing from our cabinet, so I went to the Light:

[They had an annoying way of layering headlines from multiple stories back then, so I’ve whited them out in the image above to avoid confusion.]

Everyone contacted by the AP was sure (or perhaps in denial) that they would find Amelia Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan, including their respective spouses. Her distress calls were heard, but locator technology not being what it is today, the range searchers had to cover — remote and at sea — was incredible.

The theory was that they overshot Howland Island, “a mere sand spit a mile and a half long and but two feet above the water, and [the plane] was forced down a short time later.”

This map appeared in the Light on July 4:

Graphics were hand-drawn then, but this map is still quite detailed given the island elements. The New Ireland Archipelago is part of what is today called the Brunswick Archipelago, which is itself part of Papua New Guinea. What is labeled as “New Dutch Guina” is today known as Irian Jaya, which is part of Indonesia. Howland and Baker Islands are uninhabited U.S. possessions and national wildlife refuges. The Gilbert and Phoenix island groups are today part of Kiribati (climate change and rising seas have endangered the nation’s very existence these days), and the Ellis (also spelled Ellice) Islands are part of Tuvalu.

Earhart was an experienced flier, as was her navigator. Noonan “spent 22 years at sea before serving as pilot and navigator for Pan American Airways. He was aboard the first clipper ships in pioneering flights to Honolulu, which blazed a commercial air trail from California to Manila.”

As the days went on, the stories grew less hopeful. Mrs. Noonan grew inconsolable as the truth settled in. As we know, the wreckage and its crew was never recovered. Perhaps someday…